Om Shanti Om

If you're up for some good "time-pass", have been a Hindi film buff since you were a kid, this one's for you. "Karz" was one of my favorite movies growing up. The ruthless Simi, the cutesy Rishi Kapoor and the hapless Raj Kiran - all made for a good masala flick.

The songs are good, and the song "Daastan-E-Om Shanti Om" sounds and feels like the "Phantom of the Opera's" title song. Though, I have to admit that this one is a "good, inspired copy". Shahrukh looks too malnourished to have a good body (or maybe that's the new look).

After the success of Don II, does this movie signal a new era of remakes?

Yet another cliché of a movie

1. The title is the one I hated the most - it's regressive, the word "daag" seems straight out of a medieval novel, and I feel really angry about it, and that's why it doesn't figure anywhere on this blog post.

2. Jaya is definitely trying to usurp Nirupa Roy from the not-so-desirable position of whining mom, helpless wife and sacrificing mother. She seems almost demented in some scenes.

3. Give us a minute dose of reality, and we the viewers will willingly take it. But oops...we're talking about Yash Raj movies here. The mansion of a house (which of course is justified as a white elephant); the late night sewing sessions of the aforementioned self-sacrificing mom in darkness, the Catlic sidekicks with bad Hindi/English, cliché after cliché of ghise-peete dialogues - here's one - "I'm marrying you because you're the only (whore) who knows her Hanuman chalisa"!! What! - where did this come from? As far as Suketu's novel goes, most of the sex workers come from very poor families, and are very god-fearing.

4. One last silver lining - I'm sure the classical purists hate her for selling out to mass media, but I quite liked the Shubha Mudgal's remixed version of the title track.

A full dosage of culture

This Saturday, we attended the South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival in DC. The festival was really well organized, well attended and we got to experience quite a feast of good movies, book readings and panel discussions. Plus, there was some star power in the form of Nagesh Kukunoor and Kiran Desai. “Dor” and “Punching at the Sun” were screened as part of the festival, followed by a Q&A. I quite liked “Dor”, and I think his style of writing/direction makes you feel buoyant and cheerful about life; and makes you believe in the innate goodness of humankind. L was even slightly disappointed that the movie had such a feel-good ending; but I was quite happy with it. He even asked Nagesh the same question, and he answered “Why not? I want my audiences to leave the theater with a good, warm fuzzy feeling”. He’s really a great guy – so creative and so unassuming. No airs, no fake accents, just sincere movie making.

“Punching at the Sun” is this year’s entry at the Sundance festival about an inner-city neighborhood in Queens and a teen’s coming-of-age story. Left me wanting for more; but I think the director Tanuj Chopra had me quite entertained in the Q&A. When asked a serious question about the teen’s father and how his character was not developed, and whether that was intentional, he started saying how it was an expression of his basic theme etc. Then he just gave up and said “Oh, actually, he just didn’t show up in the last few weeks of shooting!”

The other notables were Devyani Saltzman(Deepa Mehta’s daughter) who’s written a memoir, Tarun Tejapal (really dynamic journalist and founder of Tehelka.com with a colorful personality), and Samrat Upadhyay, whose reading reminded me a lot of “The Glass Palace”.

Omkara

Watched the much hyped movie this weekend. Though I loved the editing, direction and the dialogues, the movie left me asking for more. It was probably because I was expecting too much from it. I think I should just enjoy a movie without reading any blogs/reviews about it. In any case, personally, I thought Othello’s character is supposed to be a very passionate, almost violent role; but the restrained Ajay Devgan did not do justice to the role. Though he acted well, I could not see the despair and the jealousy that the character needed to depict. Konkana Sen, as usual was brilliant; and Saif’s gaalis left me chuckling.

L and I came up with an alternate casting:
Othello: Abhishek Bachan
Iago: Manoj Bajpai

Fanaa

I’m always super-excited about watching even mediocre Hindi movies, so I was really looking forward to watching Fanaa, considering I had good reviews about it. The past few Hindi movies that I’ve seen (Rang De Basanti, Hazaaron Khwaishe Aise, My Brother Nikhil) have left me with nothing with very good impressions about the new directors and the concepts. I am particularly happy with the fact that they no longer consider the average movie-goer to be an immature incapable of understanding complex feelings, plots and grey characters. This movie unfortunately disappoints.

Maybe I have a morbid sense of humor. But this particular episode in the movie is absolutely ridiculous – Rishi Kapoor plunges to his accidental death in the Kashmir valley. The scene cuts to Kajol filling water by the frozen river (why she’s doing that when her house is equipped with the latest gadgets and even a throbbing fireplace is beyond me); where she actually sees Rishi Kapoor’s body flowing underneath the icy river!

Clichés abound…a Delhi travel guide lives in a beautiful apartment complete with a patio and garden furniture. The rain song with Kajol in her drenched chiffon sari. Ee Gads! Poor blind Kajol goes about her merry life with her concept of her “shehazada”. Kiron Kher is intolerable as the overbearing mom. Not one character is fleshed out.

Weekend movies: Kontroll, Melinda and Melinda